MARC DESCHENES

Caleb Nickerson
RAPIDES DES JOACHIMS
Nov. 1, 2017
Newcomer enters race in Rapides:
One resident of the small community of Rapides des Joachims is looking to take the top council seat in the municipality.
Marc Deschenes has lived in the area for almost 15 years and works at Chalk River Laboratories as a project control maintenance planner on the National Research Universal (NRU) reactor.
Though he has never sat on municipal council before, he said he has plenty of ideas about how to improve the lives of his fellow residents.

“It will be a learning curve,” he said. Deschenes sees the municipality’s isolation as the primary challenge to growth.
“The main thing for me, is to be able to have access to services that we don’t have right now,” he said. “Any time we need to get our picture taken for our driver’s licence, we have to go to Campbell’s Bay. To me that doesn’t make sense. If I’m working full-time it means I have to take work off for that. It’s not right.”
He said he would look into compromises like having services such as the licence bureau brought to the community once or twice a month, or forming an agreement with Service Ontario.
He said he would also work to extend the bridge to allow snowmobilers access to the area in the winter months. He said that increasing the amount of visitors would be key to the economic development of the area.
“Tourism is huge to us, we have three beautiful lodges on the island,” he said. “The fishing is amazing, there’s hunting, camping … That’s why I came here in the first place 15 years ago. I came for work and stayed for the scenery.”

JAMES GIBSON

Caleb Nickerson
RAPIDES DES JOACHIMS

Nov. 1, 2017

Gibson seeks third term:
The two-time mayor in the isolated community of Rapides des Joachims is seeking out a third term.
James Gibson has lived in the community since 2000 after moving from London Ont. The former businessman has been mayor for eight years and served as pro-mayor for four years before that.
He’s also deeply involved in his community outside of council, sitting on multiple boards for the Deep River Hospital Foundation, as well as several committees at the MRC. He is the council’s representative at meetings with officials from Canadian Nuclear Laboratories and also sits on the administration committee.
He said that many of the issues that his constituents face stem from the location of the municipality, which is an island in the Ottawa River, located almost two hours from the county seat in Campbell’s Bay and only accessible from Ontario.
Gibson explained that he’s worked to build partnerships with medical services in neighboring Deep River to avoid sending local patients all the way down to the Shawville Hospital.
“Couple of weeks ago I managed to get the north Renfrew Health Service to agree to come and pick up people that have wheelchairs, we didn’t have that before,” he said. “These are the issues we’re working on, as far as the licence bureau goes, people are just going to have to drive down to Campbell’s Bay, there’s no getting around that one.”
If re-elected, Gibson said his priorities would be bringing revenue and jobs into the community, by continuing work on a marina for the island, adding an extension on the bridge to allow snowmobiles access to the area as well as continuing to invest in local infrastructure.
“Since I’ve been mayor we’ve managed to put over a million dollars into the infrastructure through grants and gas tax money,” he said.
Gibson said that the thing he likes the most about his community is the relaxed lifestyle and scenery.
“It’s a really beautiful place to live,” he concluded. “It’s quiet. I’d never go back to the city.”